


Basic

by wonderwhatthisbuttondoes



Series: Blackwatch Tales [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Early Blackwatch era, Gen, Military Training, Pre-Fall of Overwatch, Young Jesse McCree, battle of wills, just a day in the life..., mental puzzles, minor training injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 15:57:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12820953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonderwhatthisbuttondoes/pseuds/wonderwhatthisbuttondoes
Summary: How much would it suck to be your  Super Soldier drill sergeant'sonlytrainee?Welcome to Blackwatch, Jess.





	Basic

**Author's Note:**

> This is the full version of the flashback Jesse was dreaming in chapter 2 of 'Midnight Tortillas' (https://archiveofourown.org/works/12065919/chapters/28109250)

“{Am I in hell?}” Jesse wheezed in Spanish, cresting the top of the log-wall and clinging there, dripping.

"Not yet,” Reyes promised with a laugh, and shoved his new trainee’s face back one-handed, knocking him off the wall and down into the water-hazard below.

Jesse surfaced- -not coughing this time, though he could still taste scummy duckpond goodness from the first two times in the back of his throat. He glared at the top of the wall where Reyes’s head had disappeared again, and cussed him.  
Dragging ass a little, he regained the base of the wall and began climbing. He’d already checked for loose boards. AND underwater gates, after that fourth time…

Nah… this was a puzzle all right, but the test wasn’t the wall.  
Reyes was.  
Reyes and his cheatin’, super-soldier, ‘I could kick your ass with one-’ _hand_.  
It wasn’t just his strength either, it was the way he kept almost-breaking Jesse’s nose every time he-

Oh.  
Oh… oh screw you raw old man…  
But that was it, wasn’t it. Reyes wanted to break his nose.  
...Why?  
It didn’t matter.  
Jesse climbed, tenacious, the grip of his fingers shaking slightly with exhaustion. His thoughts slithered quickly over the possibilities, considering and discarding.  
Against all reason, he’d never had his nose broke before. It was smarting some now, and the thought of that exploding ten times worse and _staying_  wasn’t an easy one.  
Maybe he could make like he was gonna do it, and then eel over...

The fantasy of yanking the Blackwatch commander down over the top of the wall into the water and be damned to getting over it was a pleasant one.  
Get him beat worse though, wouldn’t it?  
...Maybe not, if it got him up over the wall. Reyes played dirty, but he did seem to have a few rules, and right after the first one was, _just get it done_.  
Shit, he had to make a decision fast, or Reyes would notice he was stalling.  
Fuck it. If he had wet clothes, so would the old man.

Cresting the top of the wall, Jesse looked at Reyes’s open hand apprehensively, and set his jaw. A chuckle began. Jesse pressed up into Reyes’s palm angrily, smelling pine sap from the logs, spent gunpowder, leather, and something faint like coconut. The pain in his face began-

Hatred _bloomed_. Jesse lashed out with his left hand, wet, scraped fingers catching a strap on the side of his enemy’s armor webbing, and pulled, bending his head back out of range and kicking out against the wall with both feet as hard as he could, a half-beat apart.  
Everything moved slow.  
Reyes went over.  
Jesse fell, looking up wide-eyed with the beginnings of a shocked grin.

Reyes stopped with a jerk that tore Jesse’s fingers clear of the armor-strap, and watched him fall the rest of the way impassively, hanging one-handed from the top of the wall.

"-Nice try."

**Author's Note:**

> Lamont Cranston: Am I in hell?  
> Tulku: Not yet.  
> -'The Shadow' (the 1994 movie)


End file.
